Kelley: 'Tree people' at home in Great Falls

Great Falls, Mont., should not hesitate to toot its own horn. In 1805, the five waterfalls from which the city takes its name figured prominently in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. From 1950 to 1970, the city held the distinction of being the most populous in Montana.

Furthermore, not only is Great Falls the location of the world's shortest river (Roe) but it plays home sweet home to a university, the C.M. Russell Museum Complex, and the Great Falls Voyagers minor league baseball team, which underwent a name-change from the White Sox to honor general manager Nick Mariana's historic filming of a UFO floating eerily over third base in August 1950.

Yet, despite all the abovementioned allure, the primary reason we made the 1,000-mile trip (each way) earlier this month was to spend time with our one-and-only grandkid. When we arrived, a couple of feet of snow blanketed the ground, the temp hovered around zero and a Christmas tree, surrounded by mounds of glittering paper-wrapped presents, twinkled in the living room. While we both received dozens of very thoughtful gifts, our favorite came from Max, who insisted, much to our surprise, we accompany him to the Paris Gibson Square Museum as his guest.

Now Max adores all things science ("MythBusters" being his favorite TV show) and we've escorted him, here in Southern California, to a natural history museum, an aquarium, an auto museum and even a rock-and-minerals exhibit, but we never dreamed art would be a turn on for a 9-year-old in love with Hot Wheels and the iPod Touch.

It seems last year Max was enchanted by the field trip his class took to the Paris Gibson, an impressive sandstone structure in the center of town that previously served as a public school for more than eight decades. While he paid perfunctory attention to the oil paintings, watercolors and drawings in the museum, what seemed to impress him most and what he strove to share with us were Lee Steen's "tree people."

Fortunately for Max, we got in for free. Farmers Union Insurance underwrote the cost of admission so that no art lover would be turned away. While Max paid proper respect to headliner Theodore Waddell, a nationally regarded painter who captured the flora and fauna of the Rocky Mountain region with modernist sophistication, the Steen collection kept calling his name.

Lee Steen, a native of Horse Cave, Ky., was clearly self-taught and his work would be catalogued under the heading "Outsider Art" — much like Grandma Prisbey's Bottle Village in Simi Valley or the primitive paintings of Grandma Moses. According to his biography, in 1942, Lee and twin brother Dee, relocated to Roundup, Mont., where they lived on property populated by Lee's tree sculptures, odd mechanical assemblies and outlandish animal figures.

While Steen didn't "sculpt" his statues in the traditional sense, the curve of a branch or the knot in a tree trunk seemed to suggest a specific subject to which Steen would add "found materials" (or what you and I would call "trash") to complete the effect. According to the exhibit's signage, "inverted coffee cans and flowerpots became hats; beer tabs and bottle caps formed eyes; and twigs sprouted magically into handlebar moustaches."

Steen's creations not only provided a popular roadside tourist attraction during the next 30 years, but Lee persuaded the folks driving by to stop and give him five or ten dollars for one of the so-called "cowboys" he constructed. Apparently, he subscribed to the Frank Zappa school of creativity. Zappa, who with the Mothers of Invention released 60 highly profitable albums, wrote, "Art is making something out of nothing and then selling it." Steen didn't die a millionaire, but then he never fretted about his next meal either.

With Steen's death in 1972 and the subsequent sale of his property, the unique environment that set off his work ceased to exist. Fortunately, the fundraising of John Armstrong and Jim Poor preserved Steen's constructions for future generations in a permanent attraction that now wows such grade-schoolers as our grandson.

Just a few decades ago, the public school system here in the Golden State was the envy of the nation but today, budget cuts deny our school kids much more than field trips or art programs. Currently, we can't do much about teacher layoffs, shortened semesters and crowded classes, but we can schlep our kids to a local museum or two — Ventura County boasts 26 of them. Who knows, parents might even enjoy the experience as much as their offspring do.

So, when it comes to horn-tooting, Great Falls should feel free to give it its all — especially as residents huff and puff their shovels through the never-ending snow.